Showing posts with label islands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label islands. Show all posts

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Sun Sails

shimmers of warm light fall upon the softened crest

making tiny strides glisten with a radiance

seen only by the melancholy heart.

underneath, countless species behind ageless corals

savor the ocean's breath

while way above,

sails ride the wind with

souls in search of meaning.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

A Nation Beleaguered

Today June 30, 2010 the 15th President of my country took his Oath amid a hopeful crowd at the National GrandStand. Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III, former senator of the Republic of the Philippines, rose to popularity on the strength of his parents’ legacy.

He is the only son of Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino, an opposition stalwart who had been assassinated in 1983 by lone gunman Rogelio Galman, suspected to have been hired by the so-called tyrant Ferdinand Marcos, and/or his CIA cohorts.

Noynoy’s mother the former President Corazon ‘Cory’ Aquino captured Filipino hearts when she led the country to a civil disobedience that evolved into a People Power Revolution eventually toppling, by no violent means, the 20-year Marcos rule.

After three more presidents since the 1986 EDSA Revolution, my country today is in a condition nowhere better than it had been some 25 years ago. A culture of Corruption had widened the gap between the hardworking Filipinos and the ever-rising oligarchies and political dynasties.

The very skilled among us, professionals included, trek to foreign lands for greener pastures, while our Local Governments here sell Chocolate Hills minerals, Boracay island parcels, rich virgin timber and of late, entire islands and islets in Palawan to foreign principals. All in the name of foreign investments, MNCs are lured to locate in my country tax-free and duty-exempt.

Our Legislative Houses are divided by the intramurals of a multi-party system and alternately, by indecisions leaning on next-of-kin favors. Those in power, their friends and allies, and friends of the allies are above the law to the extent that small drug and gambling operators are raided and captured, but NEVER their lords.

Our Government’s only profit centers ---- its Internal Revenue and Customs Bureau--- are two agencies brimming with notoriety and dishonesty. Because of this, big and small businesses, legitimate or otherwise, are stirred to cheat on their declarations, or bribe their way out of value-added taxes. And rather than feed on the corrupt Government officers’ avarice, businesses work their way around the legalities and simply pass the tax burden to the poor citizenry. What’s more unfortunate is that Legislation seems to be backing up this whole system. None of the previous Administrations is able to enforce the rightful intentions of the law.

Our Military secretly sells government arms and ammunitions to our Muslim brothers in Mindanao. A couple of recent insurgencies led by now Senator Antonio ‘Sonny’ Trillanes IV called attention to this but that was all. Political dynasties and wealthy scions of trade and industry in Mindanao continue to be protected, inspite of the recent mass murders of journalists and an opposing political clan.

Our country, once the top rice exporter of Asia-Pacific, no longer produces enough rice for its 90 million people; it has to import its own staple from the same neighbors it used to supply to in just the recent past.

Unable to produce anything on its own, the Philippines imports everything it needs, from branded cars and industrial machineries to rich countries’ surplus garments and excess junk.

More and more Filipinos live, work in and migrate to foreign lands. Our women marry Japs, Arab princes and aging GIs, sometimes for the green card, often for the greener pastures.

More and more young people from the countryside move to Metro Manila to become slaves of the spa trade, or cheap entertainment hubs --- after all there’s not much promise in the underdeveloped agricultural industry that remains technologically backward.

Many of those who have had the opportunity for education in the provincial capitals and cities, jobless Nurses included, have now joined the ranks of call agents in the so-called sunshine industry.


Inherently rich in natural resources of land and sea, and blessed with a talent pool of God-fearing, fun-loving, gentle-smiling people, the Philippines of the 80’s was positioned to be Asia’s next tiger economy.

It didn’t happen. Not then, not now.

In the hands of the new president today rests our renewed sense of Hope. His battlecry (Walang Mahirap Kung Walang Corrupt”) to eradicate corruption and alleviate poverty is both courageous and compelling.

We urge those around him to coalesce for the Common Good Cause, and guide him to distinguish from the personal agendas and the business motivations of the family oligarchies who supported his campaign.

We urge the stars led by his sister and celebrity talk show queen Kris Aquino to help install a culture of Good Governance and work together the way any constellation of genuine stars do.

This is the only route for his presidency to succeed. The only way for his parents’ Legacy to live on. And perhaps the only path for my Philippines to shine once again.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

A Horizon Calm

(I.)

above a sea of clouds

an endless space of hovering light,

heaps of White

move softly about as the Blue divan lay still.

a soft divide of faint Yellow and silky Orange

shuffle upward yielding to Velvet hues.

in the distant horizon,

a Pink beacon permeates

gaining intensity as we glide.



(II).

across the ocean below

fields of fiery Red trees alight Autumn in a continent

while realms of verdant Greens hover Spring in another.

Father Time suspended while we sphere Mother Earth.

Life above and below in a constant roll

People of all races,
Blacks and Whites,
Browns and Blondes,

Converge

As one

once Horizons obscure.


(III).


The miracle of colors pass me by

Till the Light slowly fades to reveal its First Star.

And then...

there were many more.

The Horizon Calm cedes into Infinity.

(Black in Perpetuity)

Where Nothing is Everything.





@Pat Perez airborne Nov 2007& Sept 2009 /June 2010

Monday, February 1, 2010

Life On A Cusp

Ocean waves crumble, crawl and cede

repeating its cycle in restless motion.

My pen strokes fumble, mumble, tremble

rotating its themes in timeless cycles.

A first film in the writing,

A picture book in the making,

Long cherished dreams are no closer than before

as the routine of a working life

and the daunting tasks of providing for others

take first precedence over feeding my own.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Somewhere in the Palawan Isles

My carefree breathing felt heavier than the gentle breeze rustling amid the glistening leaves. Only the faint sound of a cricket probably calling out to its mate disturbed the silence of the moonlit evening, as the Palawan waters shimmered against the pitch black stillness of the horizon calm.

An occasional gush of the eastern winds whistled soothingly into the depth of the moment, no longer afraid as I was briefly of the solitude. The serene atmosphere smelled of burnt fern, reminiscent of the comforting cool of Baguio and temperate Tagaytay and yet, not quite the same as their feverish calling for company.

A single leaf would find itself cradled to the ground by every singular motion of a wind's whiff.
And over the distant shores, balls of light emit a subtle radiance that reminded me of life beyond this beautiful landscape of red earth.

The stars invisible as they are from this virgin island laden amid a gently sloping mountain range look down upon me, as I await the hour of my birth. I find respite in this personal space to be re-aligned with the cosmic energies, to be rejuvenated once more for a new stretch of life.

Another leaf, dried and lifeless had fallen with the suden gush of the gregarious wind. This time the eminent sound of its whistling lingering longer than the last time, and evoking an echo at its tail that wasn't there when I first noticed it.

I go back to an annual tradition of geting inside myself, taking stock of where I am and which way I am bringing myself to go next. Only now I have both more and less choices.

More perhaps because of the immense opportunities that go with lifelong experiences, and yet less because of the passage of time inevitably lost in the learning and coping with living a human life.